I moved back to the cabinet and grabbed two shot glasses. Pouring the vodka into the glasses, I shoved one toward Gabriel as I leaned against the counter.
"So, tell me, oh angelic one, what's it like in heaven?"
Gabriel took the glass and stared at it before tipping it back in one go. I watched his throat move up and down as he swallowed, mesmerized by his very presence. Man, that vodka was working fast. Had I eaten today? Nope. Nothing but that frozen yogurt with Michael. Oh, well. I wanted to get drunk. Guess I would be getting tacos later.
"Heaven is..." Gabriel trailed off, holding his tiny shot glass in his big hand as he stared off into the distance. "Energy. It's not like here where everything is hard and cold." His lips pressed together and then he ran his tongue across his teeth. I felt like a drooling idiot watching him. "We don't even look like this up there." He gestured to his form. "That's all for the sake of you humans."
"Huh." I leaned my face on my hand as my vision grew blurry. "Then how do you know who is who? Are you like Tinkerbelle? Sparkling little lights flying through the sky?" I made a zooming noise as my hand pretended to be a plane jetting through the clouds.
"Tinkerbelle?"
I dropped my arm and met his gaze. "You know, like a fairy?"
"Fairies aren't real," he said simply, but before he could even finish, I jumped up and clamped my hands over his mouth, my eyes wide.
"Don't say that!"
He tried to talk around my hands, but I wouldn't drop them.
"Every time you say that, a fairy somewhere falls down dead." I stared at him, dead serious. His brows shot up to his forehead, and I could feel him smiling against my hand. "You laugh but it's true. Just ask Peter Pan." I dropped my hand and poured another shot for us both.
"Who?"
"Never mind." I waved him off and downed my shot. As that burned its way down my throat, I grabbed the bottle of vodka and walked away from the counter and toward my bed. In mid-stride, I kicked my shoes off, then sat the bottle down by the bed. Pulling my shirt off, I stood in my bra and pants. "Are you coming or what?"
Gabriel stared at me for a moment, and then realization kicked in and he hurried to my side.
Beaming up at him, I unbuttoned my pants and dropped them to the floor before kicking them away. "Okay, your turn."
Gabriel swallowed hard and then, like lightning, had all his clothes off and stood completely nude before me. I gaped at his body, all the lines and hard muscle, before I hurried to catch up with him. In my hurry, I ended up tangled in my own underwear and fell to the bed in a moan of mortification.
"Well, that was sexy," I grunted as I slapped a hand over my face, not chancing a look at the angel before me.
"Very." Gabriel chuckled and the bed dipped beside me. "I've never seen a more arousing sight." His words were low and seductive, making me move my hand away from my face to see him hovering over me. His eyes weren't on my sprawled-out form but my pink face.
Flushing even harder, I waved him off. "Stop it. You're embarrassing me."
Gabriel only laughed louder before picking up on of my legs and trailing his mouth along my ankle. The sensation made me shiver and my embarrassment evaporated. I watched with a gaping mouth as his lips moved up my calf, my knee, and then slowed along the inside of my thigh. My heart rate sped up in anticipation of where he would go next, but instead of giving me what I so desperately desired, Gabriel skipped right over my center and went to the other ankle and started over from the beginning.
By the time he reached my core once more, I was begging for him to touch me. Taste me. Anything to ease the pulsating need inside of me.
"Gabriel," I panted as I reached for him. "Please."
"Oh, I do so love it when you beg." Gabriel's eyes lit up and his lips curled into a mischievous smile.
"I'll beg all night long if you would just fuck me already," I growled at him, getting a hold of his arm and pulling him toward me. He didn't budge. With a narrowed gaze, I bared my teeth at him. "Come on, no more teasing."
"But I thought you liked it," Gabriel murmured as he lowered himself down to hover above my core. His words were hot against my skin, and a low moan escaped my throat. "You like to want it so badly, you might die before you get it."
His tongue flattened against me and I gasped, my hips bucking up to meet him.
"Gabe." I said his name like a prayer on my lips, and he must have liked it because he didn't make me beg for him to do it again. His mouth covered me, pulling and lapping at my most sensitive parts until I was falling apart at the seams.
Then, while I was still trying to catch my breath, my alcohol-muddled mind spinning, he climbed up to place his arms on either side of my shoulders. Our gazes locked together, blue eyes meeting green, as he slid home. My legs automatically wrapped around his waist, and he rocked against me.
Low keening sounds slipped out of my mouth while his pace quickened. My fingers dug into his biceps, urging him to go faster, harder. He didn't make me beg for it. Maybe he was tired of waiting too, or maybe he needed this as much as I did.
Gabriel moved inside of me at a breakneck speed, and he was still going even when I came and started to build up to another orgasm. It wasn't until I'd come again that Gabriel finally let out a grunt and slowed down, now just rocking against me to ride out the feeling.
My hands played with the hair on the back of his, neck and I smiled up at him. He returned my smile with one of his own and a soft kiss. Against my better judgement, or maybe because of the alcohol, I let those words I so wanted to say fly out of my mouth.
"I love you."
Chapter 18
GABRIEL STARED DOWN at me like I'd grown a second head. "You love me?"
I eyed him as I pulled my lower lip into my mouth. "Is that okay?"
Shifting off me, Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed his hand and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it more. "I mean, I guess. I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" I sat up on the bed, my irritation starting to cover up my hurt. "Either it is, or it isn't. Either you feel something, or you don't."
I must have been putting off some kind of distress signal because Lucifer appeared at that very moment. Dressed in one of his usual suits that made my mouth water on most occasions, his dark eyes zeroed in on Gabriel and mine’s state of undress and a wicked grin slid up his face.
"Well, well, looks like I missed out on some fun." His expression changed when he read our faces. "What is it? Did he not get you off? Don't feel bad, brother. It happens to the best of us." Lucifer adjusted the cuffs of his shirt beneath his jacket sleeves. “After all—”
"She said she loved me." Gabriel's eyes moved from the ground to Lucifer, his words stopping the Devil in the middle of his rambling. "Did she tell you?"
As if he saw something in Lucifer’s eyes, Gabriel turned to me next and asked with a sort of panicked voice, "Do you love him too? What about Michael?"
"She told me too, mate.” Lucifer’s brow furrowed. “No need to get so worked up. It's only natural she'd fall for us. We are quite irresistible." He pulled at the sides of his jacket as he grinned and winked my way.
Frustrated beyond measure, I shifted on the bed to pull the covers up. Naked and real talk don't really go together. "So far, I'm just hearing a bunch of talk about me loving you, but none of you have yet to say you loved me. Feeling a bit loveless here!"
Gabriel didn't turn to me, but Lucifer made a sort of surprised sound.
"Love, we're angels,” he said softly. “I'm not sure we even define love as the same thing."
"But you love God, don't you?" I pointed out, my confidence shrinking by the second. "That's the same thing."
"No, it's not." Gabriel's body twisted around to look at me. "We love God because he created us to be that way. We want what he wants. We need to make him happy. It's in our DNA."
"What about him?" I jerked a hand at Lucifer as my face scrunched together in confusion. "He clearly doesn't love God. He fell
."
Lucifer scowled. "For the last time, I didn't fall. I disagreed with dear old dad, and he is punishing me for it. That doesn't mean I don't feel the same as the rest of them." He pointed a finger to his head, letting a wry grin slid up his face. "It's like a needle in your head telling you to do this or that, and you fight against it, but you can't stop it. So, one might argue that I disagreed because he wanted me to, and thus, I am being punished for no reason."
I would have felt sorry for the Devil right then had it not been for the fact that I had already bared my heart to them, and they were systematically stomping all over it.
"So, what do you feel for me?" I asked, trying a different tactic. I held the covers to my chest as my head whipped back and forth between the two of them, dying for an answer to my question.
Gabriel reached out and took my hand. His thumb brushed along the top of my knuckles. While the movement was soothing, it wasn’t enough to make me give up on my question. Finally, he spoke.
"I care for you deeply. I want to be with you when I'm not here. I think about you all the time. I'd put myself between you and the rest of Heaven's army if it came down to it." He paused for a moment, his eyes full of emotion and insecurity. "Is that love? The kind you have?"
I swallowed down the tears that threatened to fall and nodded. "Oh, yes. Definitely."
Moving closer to me, Gabriel cupped my cheek and stroked the tears that I hadn't been able to catch.
"Then I love you, Jane Mehr."
I dropped the sheet and flung myself at him, holding him tightly to me. He laughed and hugged me back, then began to press kisses to my shoulders and neck. Before I could let him start something else, I lifted my head from his shoulder and met Lucifer's gaze.
Those dark eyes met mine and were filled with such mixed feelings that I almost thought he didn't feel the same way. Then I remembered the way he had needed me to say it. He needed me to love him because he didn't know if he was just a byproduct of his father's creation or if he was his own man.
I mouthed, I love you, to the Devil.
With that, he nodded and smiled back at me. He didn’t need to say the words to get his point across. It took a long moment, but when we had all calmed down, I leaned back from Gabriel.
"Well, I guess that sobered me up enough that I should finish my work for the day," I muttered.
After I stood from the bed, I searched for my clothes, well aware of the hot gazes on my bare body. So I might have taken my time finding my clothes. So I might have wiggled my ass a bit more than usual. I was a girl in love with three hot angels, could you blame me?
"Jane," Lucifer groaned. "If you expect to leave this apartment, you need to hurry it up, love. As the master of torture, I can only stand so much of it."
Giving him an impish grin, I stopped teasing and pulled my clothes back on. Gabriel followed suit and hid all that delectable flesh from my view.
"So, are you both coming to this person's house?" I cocked my head to the side and picked up my keys. "I only have one person left to ask about the trophy, and if this doesn't pan out, I might have to call it quits."
"Well, we wouldn't want that, now do we, pet?" Lucifer grinned, his hands in his pockets. "It'd ruin our reputation. Come, Gabriel, we will solve this mystery for our lady love, or we should turn in our wings now."
Gabriel nodded in agreement and followed me to the door. I stopped as I remembered something. Pulling out the pin, I started to prick myself, but Lucifer stopped me.
"Don't." My eyes jerked to him questioningly. "As much as I want to be physical, if I became whole right now, we'll never the leave apartment." The liquid lust in his eyes made my lower parts clench tight in need.
Reluctantly, I nodded and put the pin back in my shirt. "Come on, no rest for the wicked."
"Don't I know it," Lucifer rumbled after us, making us all laugh.
Once we were all in the car, I pulled out the address to the last and final contestant that I needed to check up on, Chloe Wong. She lived in the better part of town, close to my parents in fact, which didn't lead me to believe she would want to talk to us. Well, maybe Gabriel, if she swung that way.
"So, what are we looking for, love?" Lucifer asked me as we pulled up to Chloe's overpriced condo. "Bloody knife? Falsified records? Lying about tax deductions?"
"How do you even know about any of that stuff?" I glanced over my shoulder at him.
Lucifer shrugged. "I'm the Devil. I hear a lot of stuff. You'd be surprised by all the wicked things I know." He wagged his eyebrows at me suggestively.
"Come on." I rolled my eyes as I exited the car and walked up to the condo's locked door. Great, I had to be let in to see her. That was going to go well. After finding the number on the board for Chloe's condo, I pushed in the call button for that number. It rang and rang and rang but there was no answer. With a frown, I glanced back to double-check number and pressed it again. Still no answer.
As I was contemplating calling the next number down, an older woman came out of the building. I moved aside to let her by while giving her an innocent smile. She nodded at me and then openly ogled Gabriel. As soon as she passed, I caught the closing door just as Gabriel made a surprised sound.
"What?" I asked as I hurried inside.
"That old lady just grabbed my butt." Gabriel gaped at where the old lady walked down to her car parked in the handicap spot. "I didn't think human libidos lasted that long."
I laughed, well, more like I cackled. "Oh, God. Yes, they do. You'd be surprised at how high the rate of STDs is in old folk’s homes. They have nothing else to do but watch TV and boink like bunnies. Well, and wait to die, but still, what a way to go, huh?" I grinned at the two of them as they shook their heads in disbelief.
Really, I applauded the old gal. If I was an old lady, I'd be using all kinds of excuses to do what I wanted to but couldn't have done when I was younger. I was going to die anyway, so might as well go out with a bang.
We took the elevator up to the third floor without incident. As we moved down the hallways, I searched for Chloe's condo number. It only took a few moments to find it, so we approached it as if we were just normal visitors.
I knocked on the door. Nothing. I glanced back at the guys.
"What now?" I asked thoughtfully.
Gabriel looked at Lucifer and shrugged. "Why don't you go in and see if she's home?"
"I'm not a bloody ghost.” Lucifer sighed as he walked towards the door. “I'm the Devil. I shouldn't—"
Whatever else he said was cut off as he disappeared into the door. We waited a few moments and then I called out to him.
"Lucifer?" I tried to yell-whisper so that the neighbors wouldn't get suspicious. "Did you find anything?"
Lucifer didn't answer for a minute, but finally, his head popped back through the door. "Well, she's not here, I can tell you that."
"Huh?" I angled my head to the side. "What do you mean?"
Coming completely out of the condo, Lucifer straightened his suit out. "The entire place has been emptied out. In a hurry too. Didn't even grab the food in the fridge."
"Well," I sighed as I placed a hand on my hip, "if that doesn't say guilty than I don't know what does." I pulled my phone out, wondering if Andre had a forwarding address for our Ms. Chloe Wong.
"Hold on." Gabriel placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'm getting a vision.” His eyes clouded over, and he had a far off look on his face. A tight frown formed on his lips as he tried to concentrate on what he was seeing. “There's a woman in a tight dress with dark hair.”
“Chloe Wong?” I asked as I glanced over at Lucifer. “Did you see a picture of her? What does she look like?”
Lucifer stroked his chin. “Well, the whole apartment was empty, so I’d say that’s a no.”
I sighed, pulling my phone out. I typed in ‘Chloe Wong designer’ into the search bar. A picture of a thirty something year old woman of Asian descent appeared on the screen. I flipped to her social media pages and panned through
her pictures and then held it out to Gabriel.
“Is this her?”
Gabriel’s eyes cleared over and his face relaxed. As he turned toward me, he took the phone. “Yes, this is the woman I saw. She was talking to a large man in a suit near a warehouse off the interstate."
I took my phone back and flipped to the section of pictures displaying her designs. Immediately, I grimaced. “Ugh. If anyone needs help to win this contest, it would be her.”
“Oh, dear lord.” Lucifer made a disgusted sound as he looked over my shoulder. “Are those pastels and plaid? Together?”
I giggled. “Yep.”
“Even I wouldn’t subject my torture victims to that kind of madness and I’m the Devil.” He buttoned his suit jack and shook his head.
“So, the vision.” I turned to Gabriel, arching a brow. “What did you see? Exactly.”
Gabriel ran a hand through his hair as he shook his head. “Not much more than that honestly. There were a lot of cars and vans parked around, but it pretty much looked like they were hanging out.”
"Okay," I said, dragging the word out. "Do you have any idea what warehouse or what interstate?" I couldn't imagine there were many, but the more details, the better.
Gabriel's eyes squinted as he tried to see more. "Interstate eighty-seven, the building says Dress Factory Wholesale." His vision became clear again. "Does that help?"
"Yeah." I nodded as I headed for the door. "Now, to catch them in the act before they flee."
Chapter 19
ON THE DRIVE TO THE warehouse from Gabriel’s vision, a call came through. Since I was driving, I had Gabriel answer it.
“Hello, Jane’s phone,” he managed at last. “Who is this?”
I could barely contain my laughter at the sight of the big gorgeous angel holding the phone a few inches from his ear like it might bite him at any moment. They really did need to get with the times already. I was only one woman. I could only do so much.
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